More than 3,700 warm banks have opened their doors across the UK as soaring energy bills leave many with no other way to cope with the cost of living crisis.
In the face of a “Dickensian” winter, the Warm Welcome Campaign has around 500 spaces joining the initiative each week to offer relief to those struggling.
From libraries to churches and community halls, the warm spaces are free social hubs where people can sit in comfort with a hot drink.
Feeling the pressure of rising costs, north London local Caroline Grant said she wears jackets and warm hats in the house to save money on heating.
“I’m fighting my gas and electric bills,” the 52-year-old said. “I’m cutting down showers and patching up old and torn clothes to save money. It’s really upsetting.”
Counting every penny, Ms Grant’s Christmas lunch will be made up of tinned foods for the first time ever.
“It’s like I’m in Oliver Twist,” she said. “I feel like the poor person staring into the windows of the rich and watching them eat their turkey on Christmas Day.”
With energy bills rocketing to unprecedented figures, a staggering number of households are unable to afford heating, despite the recent subzero cold.
Emotions ran high in a Salvation Army church in Lewisham, open as a warm space for people in the community.
A single mum from the area broke down as she reflected on how life has not been the same since Covid.
Looking around her, the 47-year-old said: “These spaces have been a God-send. Times are getting tougher because the people you used to lean on for financial help now have their own money issues.
“I have a lot of pride but it helps when I learn that a lot of people are going through similar challenges.”
A few tables away, Peter Healey was engaged in a 1000-piece puzzle while he sipped on a cup of tea.
The 56-year-old comes to the church twice a week on the days he is not looking for a job. Struggling with the loss of his mum, he said he comes to stay warm and make friends.
He lives in a bedsit with six people, so the warm space helps him to “get away from it all”.
“It’s so welcoming. As soon as I come in, they offer me a cup of tea and coffee. It’s fantastic.”
Pastor Michael Eden greeted each person walking into the church. He has been working with the Salvation Army for 20 years but said this crisis “is so different from anything we’ve come across in our time”.
“People ask me, ‘Will the world ever be a good place again?’ When the pandemic hit, everyone had a sense of a short-term emergency. During that time, the resources that were available to us were huge.
“But now, the situation feels like it has become worse. Our food bank is having to buy 70 per cent of the food themselves because the donations have dried up.”
“We just want to be here for as long as it is tough for people.”
Providing so much more than just short-term warmth, Mr Eden added that a local energy charity comes to the space on a weekly basis to give people advice on energy efficiency, negotiate on behalf of people with their energy providers and sometimes can get people insulation in their homes.
In Hackney Central Library, the borough’s mayor Philip Glanville said people have been hopping on buses “all day to stay warm”.
As well as creating warm spaces, he said seven of their libraries have added a “kind coat scheme” as an extra form of help for those in need though he warned both initiatives are “not solutions to the broader questions of poverty”.
David Barclay, a partner at Good Faith said: “Moving forward, Warm Welcome wants to build momentum and political pressure so that warm spaces are not part of the future of the UK because it is outrageous that this has to happen.
“Part of the fuel for the campaign is anger and frustration that despite being one of the richest countries in the world we have millions who can’t heat their homes.”
Find a warm, welcome space here
